White Chicken Chili

White Chicken Chili

I was watching American Beauty the other day…I know, I know, it’s an eccentric kind of movie.  But, I was completely struck by one of Ricky’s lines when he is showing his movies to Jane.  It’s during the beautiful little film of the bag being tossed by the wind that Ricky says:

"It was one of those days when it’s a minute away from snowing and there’s electricity in the air, you can almost hear it.  Right?  And this bag was just dancing with me.  Like a kid begging me to play with it.  For fifteen minutes.  That’s the day I realized that there was this entire life behind things, and this incredibly benevolent force wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever.  Video’s a poor excuse, I know.  But it helps me remember…I need to remember…Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can’t take it, and my heart is just going to cave in."

Wow.  That line, accompanied with the video of the grocery bag dancing in the wind, up, down, in circles, got to me.  Beauty, signs from God of love and life, are all around if we slow down and let ourselves experience them.  So before we get to the recipe, I want to challenge all of us to watch for beauty today as we go about our normal lives…it is there, I guarantee it.

For me, one of the greatest signs of beauty is in food.  The way simple items from this planet come together and create something delectable.  This dish is just that…simple.  It is simple, healthy and hearty, yet is tastes so good!  I adore chicken chili; actually, I adore chili of any variety.  This is a recipe I’ve been using for years, but I decided to tweak it a little and see if it could be made better.  It could indeed!  I loved the results; I hope you do too!

Ingredients
3 Cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed (or navy beans, or any other white bean)

5 Cups chicken stock

Olive oil

2 Cloves garlic, minced

1 Onion, diced

2 Poblano peppers, seeded and diced

1 Anaheim pepper, seeded and diced

2 Boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into ¾ inch cubes

¾ Cup corn kernels

1 Tablespoon cumin

1 Tablespoon oregano

½ Teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

Salt and pepper

Sour cream

Shredded cheddar cheese

Scallions

Step 1

We are going to cook the chicken first, and then it will just wait to be revisited until the end.  So, go ahead and cube your chicken.  When you are close to being finished, put your soup pot over medium high heat with about a tablespoon of olive oil in the bottom.  By the time you are finished, the oil should be hot, so add your chicken, as well as some salt and pepper, and let it brown.  When it is cooked, set it aside for later.

Step 2

Next, we will prep the veggies by dicing the onion, poblanos and Anaheim and mince the garlic.  Using the same pot, over medium heat, add another tablespoon of oil. 

Add the onion and peppers to the oil and sauté them for about 6 minutes, until they are softened.  Then add the garlic and let it cook with the veggies for 1 minute.  Add 1 teaspoon of salt and ½ teaspoon of pepper.

Step 3

Add the chicken stock, cumin, oregano, crushed red peppers and all BUT 1 cup of the beans (reserve 1 cup!).  Let the soup simmer for 10 – 12 minutes.

Step 4

Puree the soup using an immersion blender, blender or food processor.  The pureed beans will make it lovely and thick.  Return the pureed soup to the heat and let it simmer for another 10 minutes to let it reduce and thicken even more.

Step 5

Add the chicken, corn and reserved beans to the pot.  Taste and season accordingly.  Then let it simmer another 5 minutes to let the additional ingredients warm.

To serve, I like to top the chili with sour cream, shredded cheddar and scallions.

I honestly think this chili is even better the next day!  The beans make the soup more thick as it sits, so it is the perfect texture for me on day 2.  I love a dish that makes great leftovers! J

Here's to a day filled with beauty (and a hearty, warming dinner)!

Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

Chipotle Turkey Chili with Chipotle Cornbread

Hola mis amigos!  It’s almost Cinco de Mayo!  In honor of this south of the border holiday, I thought I would share this Chipotle Chili recipe with you.  There’s also a bonus quick and easy recipe for Chipotle Cornbread…just because I thought ya’ll might REALLY want to celebrate. J  I made the chili to use some leftovers from the turkey breast recipe I posted last week and it turned out fantastico!  Seriously, Tim (my husband) and I were blown away by the flavors in this simple and HEALTHY chili!

I find chili to be more of a method than an exact recipe.  So this time around, I’m going to post the directions first and the ingredient list (with my measurements) second.  Finally, I’ll post the directions for the quick and easy Chipotle Cornbread. 

Step 1

Dice some onion and chop some garlic and chipotle peppers in adobo.  At this point, I also cubed my turkey breast.  Feel free to use leftover beef or chicken instead if that’s what you have in your fridge.  If you don’t have any leftover meat sitting around that you want to use, ground turkey, chicken or beef would work just fine!

Step 2

Heat a medium-sized pot over medium high heat.  Add a couple tablespoons of olive oil.  When it’s hot, add your onions.  Cook them until softened (about 3-5 minutes) and then add the garlic and chipotle peppers.  Stir them together and let the mixture cook for another minute.  Then add the meat.  Since my meat was already cooked, I just stirred them together and let them heat while I went to the next step.  If using ground meat, you will want to brown it before proceeding.

Step 3

Drain and rinse a can of kidney beans and add those to the pot.  Then hand crush a can of stewed tomatoes (mine had onions, celery and green peppers in the can as well) and add those to the mixture.  Combine the ingredients.

Step 4

Add chili powder, some of the adobo sauce from the can, chicken (or beef if using beef) stock, oregano and...drumroll please…TEQUILA!  Yes, you read that correctly!  I tasted it after adding the other ingredients and thought it needed some depth.  I had no beer on hand, so I reached for the only Mexican alcohol I had which was tequila.  It made all the difference!  Just try it…I don’t think you will be disappointed!  Finally, add some salt to taste and let the chili simmer, covered, for at least 20 minutes.

Step 5

Serve with sour cream and shredded cheddar cheese on top.

Ingredients

3 Cups turkey, cubed

1 Onion, diced

2 Cloves garlic, chopped

2 Chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, chopped

1 Tablespoon adobo sauce (from the can)

1-14 Ounce can stewed tomatoes

1-14 Ounce can kidney beans

2 Teaspoons chili powder

½ Teaspoon oregano

2 Cups chicken stock

2 Tablespoons tequila

Salt

Sour cream

Shredded cheddar cheese

Gastronome's Note:  Chili can be a rather personal thing.  If you like it to be more of a soup, add more stock.  If you like it thick, add less stock (I know, common sense...just felt I had to say it! :-)).  Add spices to your own taste.  Make it the way you like it!

Chipotle Cornbread

To use leftover chipotle peppers from the chili, I added them to some cornbread.  I just used a Jiffy corn muffin mix and made it to the package specifications.  To the batter, I added 2 chopped chipotle peppers, a handful of frozen corn kernels (for texture) and about a half cup of shredded cheddar cheese.  I then spread it in a square, greased baking dish and bake it according to the package directions!  It was perfect served along side the chili!

Turkey Chili Soup

This dish was created at the grocery store.  When walking into the store this past weekend, we were trying to figure out what we wanted to make for Sunday dinner…we wanted something healthful that would provide some leftovers to eat on busy weeknights.  We thought about a white chicken chili we make with chicken breasts, but decided ground turkey sounded more “chili-ish”.  Without a recipe in hand, we walked through the store and selected ingredients we thought sounded good.  Thus, our Turkey Chili Soup was born.  And what a delicious result it was!  Take a look…

Ingredients

Olive oil

1 Pound ground turkey (I like using ground turkey breast)

1 Large onion, large diced

2 Jalapeno peppers, cleaned and small diced

1 Pobalano pepper, cleaned and large diced

1 Cup corn (I used frozen yellow)

3 (15 oz) cans beans (I used 2 cannellini and 1 pinto)

1 Tablespoon cumin

1 Tablespoon oregano

2 Teaspoons black pepper

½ Teaspoon crushed red pepper

6 ½ Cups chicken broth (I used unsalted stock)

Kosher salt to taste

1 Bunch Swiss chard, chopped

Sour cream, optional

Cheddar cheese, shredded, optional

Gastronome's Note:  We used a slow cooker, but you could easily make this on the stove.

Step 1

Begin, like I always do, by prepping the vegetables.  Large dice the onion.  When it comes to the peppers though, please be careful, especially the jalapenos!  I used gloves because of an incident I had the first time I chopped jalapenos.  It was for my sister’s graduation party and I was cleaning and dicing about 50 of them…gloveless.  My hands burned for days and the contacts I was wearing that day had to be tossed because they burned my eyes when I tried using them again!  So please, use caution!  Don’t be like me!  Remove as much of the veins and seeds as you like…that’s where the heat lives…so make it to your taste.  Small dice the jalapenos and large dice the poblano.

Step 2

Heat a medium sized saute pan over medium high heat.  Add some olive oil.  When it is hot, add the turkey and brown it.  It you have any excess fat when you are finished browning, just drain it off.

Step 3

Put the browned turkey, onion, peppers, corn, cumin, oregano, black pepper, red pepper and chicken broth in the slow cooker.  Drain and rinse the beans and then add them.  Add salt to taste.  Cover and turn to high heat for four hours.

Step 4

It should be bubbling and ever so fragrant by now.  Chop your Swiss chard and add it to the slow cooker.  It will begin wilting immediately when you stir it into the soup.  Let it heat through just a minute or two.  Then dish it up…doesn’t it look so healthful?!

Of course, I can’t stop there…I just had to reduce the low fat factor by adding some sour cream and shredded cheese…but oh how yummy it was!!!! J